Trading Places: A Case Study of the Formation and Deployment of Computing Expertise

Abstract

The concept of expertise has been advanced as an important analytical device, offering deeper understanding of both the process of technological innovation and the social character and implications of technology (as discussed in Chapter 1). Some important questions follow on from such a suggestion; most immediately:

• Can we use the concept of expertise in undertaking empirical research?

• How does it help us to explain processes of technological change?

This chapter results from a collaborative investigation of’ strategic Innovation in Financial Services: the role and organization of computing expertise’, funded by the Joint Committee of the Economic and Social Research Council and the Science and Engineering Research Council under its initiative on ‘The Successful Management of technical Change’. The research team comprised Dr Robin Fincham, James Fleck, Dr Rob Procter, Margaret Tierney, Dr Harry Scarbrough and Dr Robin Wiillams. We particularly acknowledge Margaret Tierney’s contribution to earlier internal papers which this article draws on. The broader findings are published in Fincham et al. (1994).